soul_logs | [Closed] watch your back a little harder

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[Closed] watch your back a little harder

Characters: Ling Yao and Takuto Tsunashi
Location: the roof of Creeping Crypts
Rating: PG
Time: Sunset, Feb. 8.
Description: After coming back from the Grand Canyon mission, Ling has been hiding out to train harder, and avoiding people. Takuto seeks him out for a much-needed talk.

The bizarre sun is setting over Death City, and on the roof of his high-rise apartment building, Ling Yao is going through a particularly advanced series of sword forms. His shirt is off, currently being used to tie the doorknob to the roof closed in a clever knot-- he doesn't want anyone to find him here. Not after the Black Blood. Not after the Witch caves. Kenshin, Rhode, Keroro, Takuto, Ran Fan. They'd all turned against him in different ways. How easy had it been for them to be turned? How easy might it be again?

Perhaps that's why suddenly, Ling who has put in the bare minimum effort at Morning Training is practicing skills he hasn't drilled in since living in Xing. He's grown frustrated with his lack of jump height here in this world, and after all of the events of the past Witch Attack, he's been pushing himself to the absolute brink, sweat streaming from him, palms and knees raw, and his eyes empty with his ferocity. His Watch-issued dao sword glints in the crimson and gold colors of the sunset, as he jumps about with precision, attacking and defending against shadows with the faces of anybody he knows.

Because he's seen it, any one of them could be the one who tries to end his life. And if that happens, how many of the Xingese heirs to the emperor's throne plan to rule justly? How many would right the wrongs of his nation? If his sister Mei Chang were to get the throne, she'd do well-- but she's from a small clan with poor standing in political matters. She'd be overturned without his pulling the strings to secure support with his clan's power.

It's these thoughts and others that are streaming in and out of his consciousness as he attacks and attacks again, light-as-a-feather twisting in the air as he jumps, flipping and rolling across the pavement, shouting roughly with his hardest attacks. His voice has grown hoarse from all of the Xingese ki-ai he's putting into it.

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Every step he takes up the stairs makes him more and more anxious. He doesn't really know what's going to happen when he gets there. Ling is at the top of these stairs, with a sword, even, if Aion's words had been correct.

There is, perhaps, a chance that Takuto will not be walking back down these stairs.

He takes a deep breath as he comes to the final landing, a small space between the last step and the rooftop door. He doesn't know what to expect, what will happen on the other side of the door. He can hear shouts on the other side, muffled through the metal.

But he doesn't expect the door to be stuck, either.

He knocks.

Ling stops short, his left foot and his sword suspended in the air. What he wouldn't give for the ability to feel chi right now, he thinks to himself, wondering who it is who's knocking. Maybe, if he stays very, very quiet, they'll get bored and go away.

He sneaks away from the door, slippers moving very, very quietly over the pavement.

This is just making everything about ten times more agonizing then he imagined it would be. But there's no way he's leaving without speaking to Ling. He has things to say that he's promised himself he'll say, and if he leaves now he might never find the courage ever again. He can't turn away because to do so would be to give in to all those self-doubting voices that weren't there last week.

Takuto waits for a long moment, then tries the door and knocks again.

"Yao Ling...?"

Oh geez. Ling makes a face, because dammit, how did they know he was here? It sounds like one of the very people he'd wanted to avoid most. "What."

In response, he rattles weakly on the door. It's incredibly obvious (and terrifically painful) that Ling doesn't want to hear him, see him, or have anything to do with him. But he hasn't come all this way to speak to Ling through a door. He needs it to be done properly, for it to be a real face-to-face encounter.

Otherwise he could have left the boy a message. But Ling deserves better.

Ling sighs and pads over to the door in his slippers. He unties the silk shirt from the doorknob and then walks away from the door, moving away without turning his back. He can't guess what's coming, but he knows he doesn't want to be caught unawares.

The door opens slowly, because he's steeling himself for this. He takes one step through the doorway, enough to let the door close behind him, and then he winces as he drops to his knees. He's still wearing a sling on his left arm, so it makes his next maneuver difficult, but he's going to attempt it anyway.

He places the palm that's not in a sling flat on the rooftop in front of him, and then bends his forehead down beside it. "I'm sorry."

Ling stared down at Takuto, surprised to say the least. "You look like you got hit by a truck," he says out loud, without even thinking about it. "Get up, get off the ground. I don't want anyone lowering your head to me like that. I'm not to be kowtowed to."

He hesitates, and then lifts his head slowly. After a moment, he struggles to his feet, which is kind of hard to do with his right leg having a long row of stitches down the thigh and his left arm in a sling. He still doesn't look the other boy in the eyes.

"I'm still sorry. I know I can't do anything to take it back or undo any of it, but I'm really really sorry."

Ling shakes his head no. "Don't. They told us all that nothing was anyone's fault, because of the Moral Manipulation Machine."

His throat feels hot and constricted. The fact of the matter is, how is he supposed to just let something like what Takuto did go? How is he supposed to ignore that and pretend everything is hunky-dory now? He's sick at heart, and he feels so much frustration that he is quite unsure what to do with any of it.

"Who told you that?" The question slips out before he can stop it, because he's been getting worn out from hearing the excuse that everyone's been trying to feed him. He knows otherwise. Blaming everything that happened on the machine was ridiculous. Certainly that special chair had had something to do with the way everyone acted, but it wasn't as if they were all free of blame. He's still just as capable of acting that way towards Ling as he was then. That part of him... is still here.

He's just trying his best to bury it so deep he'll never find it again.

"Shibusen sent out a memo," Ling grumbled, crossing his arms. "So now I'm supposed to just shrug and go, 'oh sure, everything's fine, it doesn't bother me. My life's not affected at all.'"

"Too bad Ran Fan can't do the same," he added, wrath edging the hoarseness of his voice.

Ling's last reply hits him like a stab in the gut. He... still hasn't been able to find her to apologize to her. He hangs his head and takes a shaky breath.

"Ling, I... I don't know what else to say or do. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did to you, and to Ran Fan. If there's anything I can do...." He trails off, because he doubts that there is anything he can do to help.

He swallows, suddenly trying to fight back tears. "If you--if you want me to go, I can... just go." This is the worst part. Because he actually liked Ling--still does, even. But he liked spending time with the other boy, laughing with him, and had been looking forward to doing fun things with him again.

But he's ruined that now.

Ling hasn't been able to see Ran Fan either. She's been scarce and hardly a part of his life anymore for a while now, and that's been really tough on him during his day-to-day. He's not used to being without bodyguards, it's almost feeling like someone taking a child's security blanket from them. Ling knows that this had been building inside him for some time, his feelings about her and his role as things deteriorated....

"I'm not mad about my own part. I'm only mad on her part. It is unacceptable to do such things to a person-- I can't forgive that, ever. If you touched her that way, you took her honor." And yet, he thinks to himself, she isn't around to speak for herself. He has to guess at what happened, and at what she's off feeling and doing, and it makes Ling extremely and rather irrationally angry. It's showing in the seething of his voice. He doesn't like not being able to fix things with a smile and a laugh.

"I don't want you to go. You know what I want? I want you to suffer like you made her suffer. You're lucky I haven't taken your head right here, right now. That's how we handle shit like this in Xing," Ling growls, vehement. "I've promised to take the place of her grandfather and guard her dignity. That's my duty to her. Now, if he himself we here? You would never have made it out of that filthy cave. Fu would have cut out your tongue and slain you right there rather than let you say dirty things about raping his precious granddaughter."

"I failed, in his eyes, perhaps," Ling admitted, glaring coldly down at Takuto, his fingernails digging into his palms as he clenched his fists. "But we live by different laws here than we do in my own world. I'm bound by them."

Edited 2012-04-17 18:55 (UTC)

Ling's accusations are nearly true, his desired punishment no less than what Takuto might deserve. He can tell that Shibusen and Death City's laws are eating away at the prince. Takuto knows the feeling of not being able to give the consequences a person deserves--or at least of waiting for sixteen years to give a well-deserved punch.

His voice is solemn. "Ling, I didn't rape her." It was luck more than anything that he hadn't raped anyone, because it certainly wasn't any kind of good intentions that stopped him. "I..." He swallows back a wave of nausea, but tries to continue, sending his mind back to that place, because Ling deserves to know. Ling can still, in theory, move on and get better.

Takuto, on the other hand, might be permanently broken. "I took her to the morality machine a-against her will... and I pressed the button. After that, the witches...." He pauses for a long moment, because he doesn't want to throw up. It's his first time trying to really talk about it, and it's not going very well. He tries to take a deep breath but ends up shuddering through it. "They sent her to patrol after that."

Takuto had been a little angry--he had wanted her, but he knew better than to cross the witches. So he'd gone back for Chrono, which of course had ended up... the way it had. It was just one experience after another that he can't get rid of anymore. Things inside him that he wants so much to deny, but just can't because he knows they are still there.

The thing is, whatever Ling decides to do with him... Takuto isn't sure it will be enough. Taking his head would save him the trouble of walking back down the stairs, of being alone in his apartment, of trying to sleep through the nightmares. He stares at the ground. If Ling kills him now, at least one of them won't have failed an important grandparent.

"Then why would you say such an evil thing?" Ling sputtered, his voice gone soft with so much anger. "Don't you know about-- don't you know about that kind of thing?! People judge girls differently and they-- they treat them differently, we're talking about a girl's purity and honor here. What do you think might happen if we go back to Xing, what if she tried to marry and was publicly disgraced?"

Takuto would never be able to guess this, but in Ling's culture, having it found out that a bride wasn't a virgin was still a huge deal at his point in time. The practice of showing the sheet from the wedding night to prove there had been blood let was still commonplace in some regions. It could mean getting beaten to death if the groom's family was the type to do so, or perhaps cast out.

Ling's stomach twisted in vile, furious knots. His bodyguard was so precious to him, and it was making him extremely upset just thinking of someone spreading lies about her without really understanding who she was. "Takuto," he breathed, collecting his thoughts and lowering his voice. "You don't know the things she's done for me. She... sacrificed herself for me in many ways. And I just-- I decided that I need to give her a happy life. If anyone spoils her chance at having whatever kind of happy life she wishes for, I'll never forgive them," he repeated.

He folded his arms. "So why did you do this. Tell me, I demand to know."

Edited 2012-04-23 04:38 (UTC)

He knows he can't say anything about how differently sex is viewed in his own culture. That it is becoming more and more unusual for a woman to still be a virgin bride. Because to say that would be like making some kind of excuse, when he really doesn't have one. And the last thing he wants to do is try to play off his attack on Ran Fan as something commonplace. It wasn't.

He turns pale as he tries to answer Ling's question. "It was.... When I saw you, Ling, it wasn't about Ran Fan." He's not going to make it through this. Not without crying, and certainly not without hating himself. "It was about you. I... I thought...." He has to stop to swallow, to take a deep breath that doesn't do anything to steady himself. He's trying to look the prince in the eye, but he can't. He's just... remembering, seeing the flash of Ling's sword in the dark cave, his insides heaving and knotting at his own part in all of it. He might be looking in Ling's direction, but he's certainly not seeing the Ling presently in front of him. "I thought...

"I thought it would be fun. To watch you suffer. So I... I said those things. I did those things."

He makes himself sick. He really does. That's what's inside of him, what the morality machine revealed. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth, trying to stop from gagging. He hates this, he hates himself, he just... doesn't even know what to do with himself anymore. Every day since coming back has been filled with the same guilt and the same disgust, every night has been the same horrifying dreams, every morning he wakes up crying and sick. He can hardly eat and every movement tugs on the reminders of the battles he shouldn't have fought. He can't remember what purpose his life is supposed to have anymore, or if it's really supposed to have one.

"Takuto," Ling says, worried now as he sees the other boy turn white and then a shade of greyish that just looks sick as a dog. He steps forward out of instinct, putting an arm behind him, trying to make sure the redhead doesn't fall over. "Hey."

With one sword-blistered hand, he checks Takuto's forehead, then cheek. "You need to throw up, do it," he says rapidly, "If something's wrong, it'll feel better after you get it out."

He shakes his head at first, but then turns away a few moments later and starts heaving out the contents of his stomach. It's not much, probably because it's not the first time today he's been so horrified at his own actions that he's thrown up.

He gags and coughs, raising the arm in the sling to lean against the wall by the door. At least while he's feeling this sick, his mind can't focus on what he did to cause it. Finally, after a shuddering breath, he tries to spit out the acidic taste of bile and straightens up. His eyes are watery, his limbs shaky.

The thing is, though, that Ling is wrong. It doesn't feel better to get it out. He can't get the things that are really bothering him out, and now he just feels empty and worn out.

"...Sorry."

It's a troubled look on Ling's face as he checks Takuto over. He was so angry but it's really hard to stay burning rage angry at someone who: A, is your friend, and B, is puking.

"Why would you want to make me suffer," Ling asks, watching Takuto closely. "I don't understand. I thought we were friends."

Takuto tries wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, but it really does nothing to get the bitter taste from his mouth. He leans his back against the door, and at Ling's question his legs stop holding him up. One of his legs hasn't been doing so well, anyway.

He half topples, half slides to the ground, his back still pressed against the door. He's miserable. "We were friends, Ling. It just... didn't mean the same thing anymore." It wasn't that he'd forgotten that they were friends, or even what it felt like to be friends. He just hadn't cared about Ling's well-being. At all. He doesn't even try to stop the tears that start streaming down his face.

He had thought he had reached rock bottom when he'd talked with Kaoru. He had been wrong. This was infinitely worse. The things he knew he would never tell Kaoru... they are the things that are dripping, word by horrifying, bile-tasting word from his mouth now. Because Ling was there. Ling has a right to know. Ling might still recover if he gets his answers.

"I was curious. To see what you would do. I was trying to see how far I could push you, to find out what really made you fall apart. I wanted to see you desperate. I did it because it was fun." He takes a shallow breath, opens his mouth, but he can't continue. He's too filled with pain and remorse. He had tried to kill, maim, rape, or otherwise destroy his friends for fun. The morality machine hadn't added anything to him--all of those things had been inside him from the very start.

He falls apart. He crumples forward, sobbing first onto his leg and when he can't even manage to stay even partially upright he just slumps onto the rooftop. He's trying to apologize to Ling again, but it's probably hard to hear his voice through his coughing and his gasping sobs. He's sorry he's not the good guy, sorry that he never was, sorry that he's actually a monster, and sorry that he's just so tired and miserable.

Ling wraps his arms around Takuto and tries to hug him. "I.... don't think it was all that fun," he said quietly. "If it really and truly were fun for you, you'd still be having fun now. But you're miserable."

He nods because, yes, he is miserable. He coughs weakly, still crying because he can't stop. Ling's arms are comforting, but he can't erase the thought that he doesn't deserve them. He remains limp on the ground except for the sobs wracking his body.

Ling sits with him, totally unsure what to do. He was so used to the Xingese way of hiding emotions that seeing such blatant display made him confused.

"So I don't think... hey, Takuto, what's going on? I want to understand."

For a long time he can't make any kind of response to Ling, even though he definitely heard him.

But finally, his crying subsides--just a little, just enough--and he picks his cheek up off the rooftop. It takes a lot of effort, and he's still not gathered enough strength to really sit upright, so he ends up falling onto Ling, still taking shuddering breaths and still feeling like he doesn't deserve to be using the other boy as any kind of support, emotional or physical.

"I'm not... I'm not th-the kind of person... I thought I was." He shivers and chokes a little on his own words. "The m-machine didn't make me do anything.... It just... took some pieces of me away for a while. E-everything that was left over... you saw it--it's still here. It's still me." He's starting to cry harder again--whatever part of Ling he's leaning against is going to get drenched. "I'm the... worst kind of p-person.... and I c-can't... I can't live like this...."

"What do you mean, like it took away your conscience? So that only the part of you that wishes to do wrong was left?" Ling doesn't show any concern for getting wet, his attention is solely focused on Takuto and just how very upset he is. It's got Ling quite worried. He knows that he's never seen Takuto like this. And to have made up such a big lie about doing things to Ran Fan... that's not the Takuto Ling is familiar with. Something really drastic must have happened, he knows it.

He nods woodenly, his forehead pressing against the other boy. "It seemed like most people... they just seemed kind of empty afterwards...." He drowns in his misery a little before he can muster the strength to continue. "It wasn't like that... f-for me."

Feeling entirely horrified and nauseous again, he weakly tries to push himself away from Ling. There's nothing in him to throw up, anyway, so at best he can just hunch over the rooftop and gag and try to catch his breath. Maybe it's the evil inside him that he keeps trying to get rid of. But it's not going anywhere.

"I was cruel, and I liked it. Do you... d-do you have any idea what that's like?" He grits his teeth, waiting for another wave of nausea to pass. "I've... I've never been good at coping with things and now... I can't do it. I-I hate it and I hate me."

Ling tried patting Takuto's back. "I do, a bit. I've killed in self-defense and... at times, caught myself enjoying it," he admitted. "I think that that temptation is inside everybody. It's only because of our better judgement that we're able to stop ourselves." He modded to Takuto. "From what I'm hearing, the witches took that better judgement from you, and all you had left was the dark part of yourself. It's no wonder that you did what you did, really.

Ling let that sink in, then he added, "But I ask you, did you succeed in killing or raping anyone?"

He stills a little at Ling's confession. It feels like the other boy is always surprising him. But... it's not the kind of confession he ever wants to hear, because it's just confirming that everyone is horrible on the inside, that rather than humanity being good with dashes of bad mixed in, humanity is evil at the core, draped with curtains of false good.

It's no wonder he did what he did. It certainly had come as a shock to him, though.

He exhales slowly, and then shakes his head because he still can't quite catch his breath to speak. He didn't actually kill anyone or rape anyone--though for the latter it was really the witches that had stopped him from doing so.

"In my country we talk about people being like a yin and yang," Ling explained. He grabbed a pebble and scratched out a yin-yang symbol onto the roof's concrete. "It's a symbol of half white, half black, that intertwine with each other. It means that there's light and dark inside every person. Those pieces are all you. They hold each other in place, so to speak. A person who was completely perfectly good and righteous would never be able to forgive anybody! They'd never be able to understand what it was like to have made a mistake. They would simply insist that their way was right all the time, and never compromise."

"But imagine a person who was all darkness. They'd never be able to love anybody, they'd never treat anyone with selflessness or gentleness. So if you take one of those two away-- in the case with the Witches, perhaps they took the light away-- all that was left for a time was the dark part."

"Does that make any sense?" Ling asked, pausing to pat Takuto's back. "Because there's somewhere I'm going with this."

He nods a little, still hiccuping and taking uneven breaths. Ling's words sound logical... but it still seems like a person that was perfectly good and righteous would be able to forgive people--that's part of what it means to be good.

But he understands what Ling is trying to say: there is good and evil inside everyone. Aion had told him the same thing in the clinic. Takuto had always assumed the good in people--even set out to prove it in some cases--and had turned a blind eye to the evil, especially his own. There had always supposed to be a reason why people did bad things--they were lonely or treated unfairly or thought that what they were doing was for the best--and he'd believed that everyone was in fact, inherently good. So it's... depressing... to realize he'd been wrong. Exactly wrong, even.

"Okay. So, the important thing to remember is here." Ling taps his drawing on the ground. "These dots. There's a little darkness in the light and a little light in the darkness. That means that nothing's ever absolute. You can change! And Takuto, even if someone took your light away forcibly, there was still some good left in you. That little piece of you made sure that you didn't kill or rape anyone, no matter what those Witches did." Ling squeezed the other boy's shoulder firmly and gives him a determined look, jaw set. "I'm sure of it. You had the time and the ability to, but it didn't happen. Don't deny it."

For a brief moment, he lifts his eyes to meet Ling's... but then he can't. The other boy is so confident, so certain that Takuto wasn't entirely a monster... and a part of him really wants to latch onto that belief.

But he can't. It's a lie. He stares at the drawing on the ground, watching it become a blurry as his eyes filled with more tears. "It was the Witches that prevented me, Ling. It wasn't that there was anything good. It was that the Witches told me to do something else." At least for the raping part. Otherwise... Chrono, definitely. Orihime... probably. He feels a stab of guilt, but he's too exhausted to even feel nauseous. As for the killing.... "You're alive because you're a good fighter."

"I don't think so," Ling says with a shake of his head. "You could have sliced my neck just a bit deeper. Maybe an eight of an inch, and I wouldn't be here. But you didn't. Something made you hold back, and something else made you run off instead of finishing the job."

He wants to curl up on the rooftop again, just lie there like a dead person with his cheek against the concrete, even though it's definitely getting dark and the air is cooling. But even doing that would take a lot of effort, so he just hunches forward, his voice coming out hollow.

"I was aiming to kill you. And I ran away because I thought I was losing. It wasn't fun anymore."

Ling considers this, eyes squinched shut and arms folded. "Okay," he says, slowly and cautiously. He doesn't seem so very upset about it as one might think. "Are you sorry?"

Edited 2012-04-26 18:17 (UTC)

"Yes."

In that single word is all of the guilt and horror of what he's done to Ling. He says it like he's begging to be believed.

Ling shrugged, and grasped Takuto's hand and wrist, with both hands. "Then I forgive you. That's that," the prince announced. "It's good enough for me."

Then he pounced, grabbed the other boy in a hug and began tickling the hell out of him for a reason he wasn't sure he could name.

He has no words to describe what that simple gesture means to him. Ling is... Ling still... likes him, and is going to let him get off that easy.... Even when they both know that it'd be fair for him to throw Takuto off the edge of the building.

A different kind of tears start to prick the corners of his eyes and he presses his lips together because Ling is too nice... he's just....

...throwing him down and tickling him, apparently. Which, under normal circumstances would be a great idea, but Takuto is still feeling kind of sick and worn out and he does happen to have injuries that kept him in the clinic for two days.

"Ah-ha! O-oooww!" He gives in terribly quickly, going limp.

Ling jerks back quickly, startled by Takuto's yelp. "Aiya! Yeah, so-sorry," he blurts out, stopping his attack. "You're in no shape to be roughhousing. Sorry, Takuto... I kind of forgot for a second...."

Ling's lifting the other boy's shirt now, trying to see what kind of injuries he has. "Where does it hurt? Show me."

It's mostly just a few slight bruises on his ribs except for the gunshot wound in his shoulder--that's the reason he's wearing a sling on his left arm, not because he's got any kind of ailment with the limb itself. But it's covered in gauze and wrapped tightly in medical tape. Of course, there's always that old cross-shaped scar he got from crashing Natsuo's glider.

But he's suddenly not at all focused on Ling's words because... Ling is lifting his shirt, inspecting him. He remains limp on the ground, his face turning ashen as he remembers, quite suddenly, how he had wanted to push Ling's tired and bruised body to the ground, pull his shirt away, untie his long black hair.... B-but Ling had said he was forgiven... but it had been so quick, far too easy... is this...? What is this? Whatever it is, it's too confusing and too much for him to handle right now. He can't take these sudden ups and sudden downs. He'll just... try to be unconscious... not thinking or feeling....

"Oi. That shoulder looks nasty," Ling said with sympathy, tucking the shirt back down where it's supposed to be and placing his hands on his lap. "What happened to it? I don't want to pull on it and hurt you even more. Are you taking anything for it? Did you ice it?"

He's aware that Ling is still talking. After what seems like a very long time, there's silence. And after a long pause, Takuto cracks open one eye. He's not sure he was following along with all those questions, but he takes a deep breath to answer regardless....

"It's from a bullet." He'd said something about ice, too, but Takuto is too tired to try to figure it out. And if he just focuses on the feeling of the concrete underneath him and how exhausted he is, it's much easier to avoid thinking of what exactly happened when he took the bullet to the shoulder.

Ling registers that Takuto is acting weird. "Maybe everything's kind of getting to you," he surmises. "Let's just... let's go inside, okay? I've had enough for one day, so... come back to my room with me. You don't look so good-- understandably-- and I'd rather keep an eye on you, Takuto."

He's not so much swimming in a sea of confusion and exhaustion as he is drowning in it. Now Ling wants him to go back to his room.... Not just someplace other than a rooftop, but his room. Or maybe it's his room. With him.

He's way past the point of resisting anything Ling has to say or do. Though, that's probably because his mind is following the rest of his body and going limp. It's a little like he's some kind of overloaded computer, freezing or perhaps crashing programs. Ling can do whatever he likes. Takuto doesn't care--he's not exactly listening, though he's not exactly not listening, either. Likewise, he's not resisting, but he's not actually making any movements either.

A large part of him feels like just lying there and probably crying, despite the dropping temperatures.

"...What?"

Increasingly worried now, Ling tries to help Takuto up. He helps him scoot a few feet over to the stairwell housing's wall, to lean back against it for back support. "Or... would you rather go see a doctor? You don't seem lucid."

He allows Ling to move him--even trying to be helpful with that by pushing himself against the wall with his good arm. But it still feels like all of his strength has been sapped from his body.

He shakes his head slowly, because he's been out of the clinic for a full day now--almost two--and he doesn't want to go back. Firecracker will miss him. And even though he is sliding backwards through a non-existent recovery, returning to the clinic will only make it that much more painfully obvious.

"...tired." It was supposed to be a real sentence, but the first part didn't come out. Whatever. The point is made. He leans against Ling.

"Okay," Ling says softly. "All right, I'll just take you to my place, and... you can rest safely." He wraps Takuto's arm around his neck and lifts the other boy, attempting to be careful of his wounds. He shoulders the stairwell door open and once they're through, the heavy metal portal closes behind them with a loud finality.

Edited 2012-05-02 07:01 (UTC)

He limps along, trying not to lean too heavily on Ling but not doing a terribly good job at it. It doesn't matter at all what the other boy is saying because the tone of his voice is gentle enough.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Closed] watch your back a little harder

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geez I can't stay in present tense! sorry for tense fail

Honestly, whatever is easiest for you...?

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this is undoubtedly the angstiest/saddest thing I've ever written. orz

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wow, just remembered Ling is not wearing a shirt..... oh ling-san, oh~

;D

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are you wanting to close out this log?